Leaked cipher: PTI again calls for high-powered judicial commission

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday again called for a judicial inquiry into the story published by The Intercept on the ‘cipher,’ which PTI Chairman Imran Khan claimed was proof of a US conspiracy to remove his government last year.

“We reiterate our demand that a high-powered judicial commission should be constituted to investigate the issue and make its findings public,” the party said in a statement issued on X - formerly known as Twitter.

The statement further said that the cipher debate should now be put in its right perspective and acknowledge that intervention in Pakistan’s internal affairs had indeed taken place, which led to the moving of a vote of no-confidence against Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The Intercept’s report

On Wednesday, The Intercept, a US-based news organisation, published a report based on the ‘cipher’ document.

“The document, labeled ‘Secret,’ includes an account of the meeting between State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, who at the time was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S,” The Intercept wrote in its description.

As per the purported contents of the cable, the US objected to Imran’s foreign policy regarding the Ukraine war, with the report quoting Lu as saying, “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.”

Lu further said that he had held internal discussions with the US National Security Council and that “it seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy.”

“I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister,” Lu said, according to the document.

“Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead.”

Lu also warned that if the situation was not resolved, Pakistan would be marginalised by its Western allies.

“I cannot tell how this will be seen by Europe but I suspect their reaction will be similar,” Lu said.

US responds

During a presser on Wednesday, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that even if the comments were accurate, as reported by The Intercept, they in no way show the United States taking a position on who the leader of Pakistan ought to be.

“We express concern privately to the Government of Pakistan, as we express concern publicly, about the visit of then-Prime Minister Khan to Moscow on the very day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We made that concern quite clear.”

“But as the former Pakistani ambassador to the United States himself has stated, the allegations that the United States has interfered in internal decisions about the leadership of Pakistan are false. As we’ve stated, they’re false. They’ve always been false, and they remain false.”